Ok, so I’m about to do Drack’s mission, but I did do some stuff already and I think I got some good stuff.

So I did the “Dissent in the Ranks” bit until I found the gizmo I have to give to Suvi. Learned that there are lots of archons (sequels!) and that there are factions even within the kett on Helius. Saw Kett fighting each other!

Now….

First, bravo game for letting us see the bad guys have ideas and lives that don’t concern us. Usually, Kevin gonna Kevin, which means shooting US, and blindly following the baddie. When there is “dissent in baddieland” in games, it’s usually between a big baddie, and the big baddie’s number two, who wants to be number one and take over the Kevins. Or a number two with second thoughts, or SOMETHING. Dissent never gets down to the actual Kevins to the point where they are fighting each other all “yeah, hero, this doesn’t concern you.” Which is cool. And leads to…..

Interesting metaphor.

See, this means low level, Kevin Kett can think. It takes some sense of self, some sense of morality, some sense of emotion to say “I am with that faction,” or “I am with this faction.” Choosing sides isn’t just something you DO. We’ve been treating them as inhuman (more on that in a bit). AND the folks in the game have, too.

The “permission” to treat Kett as mindless Kevins, of course, was tied to the idea that there was no more “genetic material” of anything we recognized in them. Lexi concludes “They aren’t Angaran anymore.” Ok, fine. And the Initiative, and the player, took at that either a) a reason to shoot them or b) a comfort that when the game did make us slaughter them, well, it’s cool, cuz they’re, you know, kett, and kett are inhuman. But Lexi NEVER SAID “Well, they’re not Angaran, BUT they’re still something, and they think, and feel, and care just like we do.” She just said “They’re not like us anymore,” and we took that to mean “Mindless cannon fodder.”

Remember a while back when we were talking about the “They’re the ones shooting at US!” bit and we talked about people who, shall we say, are not on the same end of the political spectrum as we are? We talked about how we can look at someone who is being all white supremacist and wonder “How did he get like that? Can he be brought back?” much like Jaal did? Well, a rather upsetting extension of that, and one that is pervading our culture right here in the Milky Way right now, is this assumption of “Well, even if that person was like us at some point, they’re not now, and THEREFORE they are not thinking, rational, caring creatures worth any amount of time.” This goes both ways, I think.

And this game tricked us into making that assumption. At least it did for me. Indeed, when Lexi was all “They’re all different” my thought was that the game was being CHEAP. “What, you’re letting us off the hook? Now we don’t have to feel guilty for shooting them?” That was my reaction. The game MUST be making them different SO I DON’T FEEL BAD SHOOTING THEM. And, fuck you game, it DID make me feel better about shooting them knowing they weren’t Angaran. Didn’t think about what they actually were.

There’s some really good stuff in this game. Too bad I’ll spend the next week hunting beer ingredients and hitting rocks.

Feminina:

That’s some good discussion, because yeah, the kett having internal disagreements does make them more complicated and interesting as characters. Although I wonder if you’re not giving the game more credit than it really worked for, assuming it was actively trying to “make us feel OK” about killing kett. I mean, it didn’t take any similar steps to “make us feel OK” about killing Roekaar or outlaws, and we murder them by the score because they’re red dots on the map and killing them is our only option for advancement.

I do definitely appreciate that, just as the game gives us Sloane Kelly and her conflict with the Collective, and something of the Roekaar’s passionate speeches and motivation to complicate them as enemies, it also gives us this “not all kett are exactly the same” complication for this enemy.

But for me, I feel pretty much equally sorry to have to kill hundreds of dudes of whatever species/political persuasion (even before knowing anything about their internal dissensions, I always felt like kind of a bully pulling up to some random little kett camp, piling out of the Nomad, and slaughtering them all)…and at the same time, regardless of species or political persuasion, I’m equally willing to do it without a second thought when they’re the red dots on the map.

“Well, someone in that camp needs killing, better head on over.”

That’s the nasty, obedient, us/them psychology that every warleader takes advantage of. “Whatever those people are, they aren’t us, they’re the enemy. So it’s fine to kill them, and also, you HAVE to kill them because those are the orders.”

We have orders. And those people are not us. We might or might not feel kind of bad about it, but it’s not our call (even when we are nominally in charge, as the mighty hero).

And sure, occasionally we learn something about them that makes us think maybe they have a point, and maybe we’re not all that different after all (and as a player I appreciate these times because they make a more interesting story), but when we inevitably return to the open map and see them as the red dots, those people are the enemy of us, and they should die. They MUST die. We can be heroes killing them, because they must die!

This game, like basically every game, makes it easier for us (possible for us, even) by making the red dot enemies always shoot first and never stop shooting. I mean, I love me some game combat, but I would rapidly lose my appetite for it if every ‘battle’ was just wandering over and gunning down people who showed no interest in fighting me. No matter what they looked like or how little complexity they had as characters.

I will never play it, but I kind of respect GTA5’s unlikable PCs and highly sketchy moral sense, like the mission where you kidnap some guy and leave him on the railroad tracks, or basically just torture a guy who’s tied to a chair. There’s a weird honesty to it, making you face the same kinds of things you do all the time, but without the heroic overtones. “You pretend murder every single time you play, why not this?”

Well, you know, that’s CLEAN murder. The corpses all just disappear! And those people were all bad!

But mostly because I don’t want to play if I can’t pretend I’m the hero. BioWare nudges a little at the idea of “I am good, therefore they are bad, therefore I will kill them all,” but doesn’t really push it. It’s not that kind of game.

Not that it has to be! It takes all kinds, and honestly, sometimes I just want to engage in some heroic combat. Murder a few dozen dudes, collect some loot, set some things on fire, and feel I’m acting righteously in the process.

Is that so wrong?

Maybe don’t answer that.

Butch:

Could be an oversight, or a shortcut. The Roekkar, after all, aren’t really as developed as the Kett at all. They’re the secondary enemy all games give us. No doubt, if asked “So who’s the bad guy in MEA?” we’d all say “Why, it’s the kett!” I wasn’t even thinking of the Roekkar until you brought it up. They’re just the “enemies we’re gonna have when people get bored with shooting kett” enemies. All games have those.

Hey, we’re finally getting to the point where they write the MAIN enemies well. Don’t ask for too much.

Red dots on the map. Ah, games.

Funny you do that, though. I don’t pull over each time. Rarely do I pull over. Usually, I just boost right on through. They take a couple shots at me, sure, but that’s probably because they were playing mah jong and I knocked over their table when I just boosted through the middle of their camp. Understandable, really.

So you’re the monster here, not me. I leave the red dots alone unless I need to get rid of them.

True about missions… But I STILL kinda wait until I get shot at. Or I wait until there is do doubt that I HAVE to go through those things that will kill me. Even with the blue remnant dots, I keep holding out hope they WON’T shoot (And that happened once! So my hope is valid!). No need to kill Kevin unless Kevin needs killing.

T SHIRT!!!!

And there Well, there are sadistic games like that, running around gunning down civilians. Postal comes to mind. So they’re there, but we don’t like them.

Interesting thing about the “shoot first” bit there is that games, either intentionally or not, make YOU shooting first more graphic. Take TLOU or RotTR. There, if you shot a dude from cover, it wasn’t all that gory. But if you got all stealthy and shived him or strangled him with your bow, you got this gory death scene all close up and personal. Now, in each case, the dude you killed WOULD have shot, and everyone knows it, but you sort of had to confront your murderousness if you did something first. Now, I’m not sure that was intentional, per se, but maybe it’s in the subconscious of the developers, too.

And at the end, factions be damned, motivations be damned, we’re gonna have to kill the archon, we all know it. They can write the hell out of him, but, eventually, he will try to kill us and everyone we care about and that will be that. And cliches will abound and we’ll be cheesed about that, but you’re right: we don’t really want it to end any other way.

Except….TW2 again comes to mind…..

I won’t answer that…

But on “acting righteously” we had a difference: I returned to my very 20th century email terminal on the Tempest to not one but TWO furious emails regarding my choice re the AI. The Angarans were PISSED that I took it without giving it to them (they threatened to close the embassy), and even said “Don’t be so stupid next time!” (The game called me stupid! Never seen that.) and Kesh was EQUALLY annoyed saying I had gone crazy. Also, that the AI spaced two crates of supplies and messed with gravity in a room before they shackled it.

Hmm. I want to think this is a “They’re making me THINK I made a mistake but it isn’t and I’ll get to be all ‘told you so’ and they’ll be all ‘what a genius'” kind of deal, but I don’t know.

Feminina:

Dude, you weren’t even thinking about the Roekaar? With their legitimate suspicions of aliens? YOU’RE the monster!

But yeah, I usually also ignore the little camps, unless they’re related to some task I’m following. “Find all the devices” or whatever. And I also always did my best to hurry in and loot the remnant sites before the remnant turned red–it can be done! You have a reason to hope!

Interesting reactions to your decision with the AI. I don’t remember anyone really saying anything…maybe a “what a shame we couldn’t learn more about it,” but no one chastised me for shooting it. And, of course, no one eventually concluded that I was a genius, since it never did anything interesting. You must continue to keep me informed.

It’s true, the stealth deaths do tend to be more ‘personal’ and graphic, and you’re right, that’s interesting in light of the way that stealth kills require you to be the initiator of the violence. As you say, we all KNOW they’d try to kill us in a second if they saw us, but it’s nevertheless true that sneaking up and shivving or strangling a dude who is not actively trying to kill you at that very moment is morally more troubling than returning fire when a bunch of people start shooting at you.

Hm.

As for having to kill the archon in the end, no spoilers, but I actually got to the end, so there’s that. It does have one! I still have a bunch of tasks to complete, but I will almost certainly not bother with them. The motivation is just pretty much gone after the main story is over.

Butch:

But I don’t need the loot! I have so very much loot! It’s come to that!

Figured you’d finish. Glad to know it does end! Am I miles and miles and miles away?

I just played some, so I’m catching up! Did Drack’s mission (I love Drack. “The only thing that’s getting destroyed is you! And your crew! And your ship! And…well…a lot of things are getting destroyed today but they’re all YOURS!”) and he’s still pissed at me for the Salarian thing. I wonder what would’ve happened had I done this first.

That was fun, and a nice nod to the whole Angaran “Our past is so special” assumption. Drack’s honesty about the past kinda sucking (he’s right) was a nice counterpoint. And I finished it! And I went back and hacked into the kett thingy, so I have to go find the dissenters.

So here’s the plan: Do Cora’s mission, then to Eos to do PB’s, meet Gil’s sister, find the dissenters. Then Aya to do Jaal’s/talk to dudes about first conflict. Then the nexus to MOVE SHIT ONWARD!

This is going to take forever, isn’t it?

You know? You should go pack. Take a break. Ring in the new house with PLAYING AS CHLOE. Let me catch up. Please.

Feminina:

Oh, I didn’t NEED the remnant loot, I just wanted to make the icon turn blue on the map so I could know I’d been there and could ignore it in future. It’s not even about the loot!

Which is something I rarely say.

We do need to pack, it’s true. But, you know, it’s no fun, so…later?

As for how far away the end is…depends. If you don’t stop to do every little sidequest the way I did, not impossibly far. Take care of the companion quests and you’re in pretty good shape.

Drack forgave me eventually, and I did pretty much the same things you did (though I did his quest before the salerian ark), so he should eventually come around. There wasn’t a specific quest involved or anything, he just softened over time. Don’t give up!

Butch:

Yeah, I’m not even stopping at the new quest marks. Fuck it. Done. I’m not even certain I’m going to get Kandara an outpost. Stuck at thirty something percent. Especially now that you’re done. We can’t get too off kilter, here.

I won’t give up on Drack, though. He wants to go drinking. That should fix it.

Ok, got onto the beat up Asari ark. Another dead pathfinder. Don’t be a pathfinder.

Feminina:

Pathfinders have a short life expectancy, that’s for sure. Turns out throwing yourself face first into danger may not be the best way to ensure a long, comfortable life! There was some interesting stuff in this quest…see what you think.

Oh, and on Drack’s quest, one thing I noticed and kind of loved, was that bit where you think you’re going to have to make a Meaningful Choice (go after the young krogan, or go after the seeds?), and then instead you turn to Drack and HE makes the decision.

YES! Dude! How many times have I wondered “why are you leaving this up to me, man? It’s YOUR life/culture/career/sacred artifact/moldy flag collection, you decide!”

Thank you, Drack, for actually taking control of a decision that impacts you much more personally than it does me. It was a nice touch, too, that this moment (not replicated in any of the other missions, that I recall) is specific to Drack, and to the much-ignored and ill treated krogan. Him taking that choice was kind of a nice thing for krogan in general, suggesting that maybe things ARE going to be better for them here, maybe they’re going to be able to manage their own future. I kind of wonder if it was a subtle nod to our having sided with the krogan on Elaaden, and if maybe he wouldn’t have done that if we hadn’t indicated that support for krogan independence, but I can’t be bothered to look it up. I’ll just imagine that it did.

Butch:

Oh thank GOD it worked that way, too! I was certain this was a “Pick one, the other dies” choice and I completely made him mad with the last one of those. I was certain that would be the moment he kills me.

That or the response when you have to say “You’re part of my crew” or “We watch each other’s backs” or something. It was like a “Should I stay or should I go?” moment. Nervous making.

How did you go on the part where he had the guy over the ledge?

Feminina:

I said we should keep the guy for appropriate legal punishment later. Because I want the krogan to be self-determining and respected, but I also want them to be part of civilized space, you know?

Drack grumped about it, but didn’t really argue. You?

Butch:

I stuck with the “Let Drack Decide” angle, and, well, that went how that went.

I ask because, in my version, the dude was all “You can’t do this” and, before he dropped him, Drack says “I can do whatever I want.” Which is a very pointed thing coming from a krogan.

Feminina:

Wow, that really is. Hm. Go krogan.

As I said, my Drack grumbled a bit but not that much, and then later we had a little confrontation/trial on the Nexus and Spender was exiled, and Drack gleefully said something like “no telling what terrible accident might befall him now,” and I just kind of shrugged…so no doubt the guy met a bad end somewhere. But the letter of the law was upheld! Victory!

And yeah, if he invited you to the bar to play “Giant Killer Monsters of Death” or whatever, you’re all good. Forgiveness will be yours.

Butch:

Oh, he’ll come around.

I should have let the guy live, because, frankly, it’s been so long that I forget what Spender did. That was MONTHS ago! I know whatever he did it was bad, and Drack hates him. That I know. The details? Uh….bad things? Maybe I could have asked “So….yeah….bad thing you did to the krogan…why don’t you tell me….your side?”

Feminina:

He was…uh…stealing supplies, I think? And selling them to outcasts? And blaming the krogan? Or something?

I remember there was also definitely something in there about how he was making Drack’s granddaughter Kesh look bad by claiming that she wasn’t using the stuff she requisitioned, or was wasting materials, or something.

And dude, you don’t mess with Kesh.

Butch:

You do NOT mess with Kesh.

By the way, the subplot of the dweeby Krogan letting it slip he was in love with Kesh was absolutely priceless. “I’m gonna rescue him, then I’m gonna kill him.”

Oh Drack, you so silly.

Feminina:

But in the end he didn’t kill him, because he was the one who could make use of the seed pods and stuff! So he demonstrated that krogan aren’t actually ruled solely by rage. Krogan rational thought 4evah!

Butch:

Drack is a very well written character.

I’m very curious to do PB’s quest, as, surprisingly, she was just as into carnage and frontier justice as Drack was. That…surprised me. But then, I don’t know that much about her past she makes great drones and is fun in zero G.

Feminina:

Well, Peebee doesn’t like to be tied down with a lot of rules and regulations. She’s an Indiana Jones style archaeologist, not one of your fuddy duddy “let’s carefully document our processes and make sure we have all the necessary permits in place and also be careful not to awaken an ancient evil” types.

Butch:

You can tell because she shows her midriff. Suvi should show her midriff.

Feminina:

Indiana Jones would have accomplished more if he’d shown his midriff.

Butch:

Lord knows all the accomplishments in my life I owe to showing my midriff.

Guns or bows are nice, but I guess I just prefer the hands-on touch you only get with sneaking up behind someone and stabbing them in the neck.

Speaking of that, have we discussed how this game is pretty hardcore with the deaths of people you kill? All those choking noises when you strangle people, and the way Ellie will jump on someone and just stab repeatedly at them until they finally collapse. Which is a pretty realistic attack for a small person with a knife trying to overcome a larger, stronger person.

I feel weird saying I LIKE this, but I guess I like the way it gives the deaths some weight. You’re not just wandering around bloodlessly wiping out faceless enemies: you’re working hard to kill other people, who would certainly otherwise kill you, but who are nonetheless recognizably human like you. (Or, in the case of the infected, at least formerly human.)

Butch:

We have not, but let’s, cuz it’s timely.

I DO like how it gives things some weight. And it sure is gruesome. Even the way YOU die is gruesome. And we should be revolted, but we’re not.

So people are looking at themselves this week saying “How come TLOU is good killing and Hatred is so yucky?” (Cuz it sure is yucky. Don’t watch the trailer. Don’t.)

We like to call BS on the people who use realism as an excuse to beef up their form of offensive in gaming. Should we be so quick to call realism on violence?

Feminina:

Ooh, that was timely!

Interesting article. I think I can say that I will not be playing Hatred. Or watching the trailer.

Why is TLOU good realistic killing and Hatred bad realistic killing? Lack of a comforting narrative justifying it, I suppose. In TLOU, you’re trying to save your own and your traveling companions’ lives. You don’t go around killing people because you like to kill people, you do it because you have to, and I think you–as Joel anyway–feel yourself to be in some measure a worse person because of it. The realism in TLOU serves to bring home the fact that you’re basically a murderer, not that much different from the murderers you kill, and it doesn’t ask or expect you to glory in that fact.

It sounds simplistic to say that violence is OK as long as you don’t enjoy it too much…but that’s kind of where I’m coming from, I guess. Or no, that’s not quite it, you don’t have to feel BAD about it, but you shouldn’t be making light of it, maybe that’s more what I’m trying to say. TLOU’s graphic deaths add weight to the idea of death and the common humanity of those who die, while Hatred’s graphic deaths make light of the suffering and death of other people.

Are the characters just as dead either way? Sure. But I could live with myself as Joel a lot more easily than I could live with myself as a hate-fueled mass murderer.

There’s certainly much artistic exploration to be done of the line between hero and villain, and I could see interesting stuff done with a game that forced you to just BE the villain that you kind of are (but aren’t really because of story justifications) in plenty of games. We usually do lots of ‘bad’ things in games (killing hundreds and hundreds of people for a start, shamelessly looting and stealing for a close second). We don’t (generally) do it for the sake of doing bad things, but it still gets done.

There could be a certain refreshing honesty in a game that just says, “You’re a horrible person! Get over it and start relishing the suffering of innocents!”

I personally would probably not play that game, even if it was generally perceived as good, thought-provoking, a valuable addition to the conversation, whatever, because I have a strong sense that if you’re taking pleasure in the whimpering pleas of your helpless victims, that’s pretty gross, and feeling gross about myself is honestly not why I play games. I felt bad about killing the unarmed, featureless drummer in the convoys in AC3: I’m not going to enjoy killing vividly detailed strangers out of ‘hatred.’

I only kill people I know out of hatred. It’s the personal touch that’s lacking here, that’s the real problem.

Butch:

Awwww, that’s why you’re a real friend. I know if you ever kill me, it’s based on that personal connection.

Yeah, that’s not one that’ll have me missing the PC.

One does not get the sense that Joel really enjoys much of anything. I think that’s why David appears slightly more monstrous; he seems to be liking all of this. Which is just not right.

But is that ok? I mean, are we being desensitized by the way the game presents death? I mean, we see Lara cry and retch the first time she kills a bad guy, who was trying to rape her, and that gives her (and us) carte blanche to basically murder a few hundred other dudes who really just want off the island? Shouldn’t we feel a little bad about them? About the guards?

I think one of the things that bothered me about Hatred wasn’t so much the violence, though that was pretty wrong. It was the idea that the devs, seriously or not, and it may have been a bit of both, argued that this was the “ultimate in gaming pleasure” or something, like the best part of games was the killing, and this just distilled it out. Which isn’t the case at all. That’s a shortsighted view of things. Hell, the WORST parts of TLOU and TR and Infinite were the shooty bits.

And there could be interesting exploration, but it is funny that there has been pretty much universal revulsion at this game across the board. This from people who play violent games, enjoy violent games, and pretty much bristle at the non-playing world trying to ban violence or blame game violence for the ills of the world. I was disgusted, and I’ve been an apologist for violent games for years.

Feminina:

Well, it’s like you were saying a couple of weeks ago that someone figured that what people mostly want to see in driving games is car crashes, so they’re making a game that’s all about crashing cars with less boring driving. A crash simulator!

Apparently someone else figured that what people mostly want to do in video games is kill other people, so they’re making a game that’s all about killing people with less boring explanation. A murder simulator!

As it turns out, many people apparently are saying “wait, actually there are non-murder parts of games that I quite like,” but I guess it’s on the same principle. “Get to the good stuff!”

Strip the game to its essence, as you said, and if for you the essence of games is the killing, well, yeah, I guess Hatred might seem appealing.

I think maybe the ‘murder’ part is also a problem. I mean, I’ve enjoyed a violent game in my time. I like setting enemies on fire or blasting them with a shotgun as much as the next person. And I like hurling knives at them possibly a bit more than some.

But the thing is, the huge, glaring difference between Lara Croft killing every dude she came across on that island after the first one, and you killing every person you come across in a murder simulator, is that those dudes WOULD have killed Lara. Sure, oftentimes if she could she’d shoot them from a distance, so they never really got the chance to PROVE they’d try to kill her, but we know they would have. If you’d wanted to do the honorable thing and announce yourself to every dude you encountered to give them a chance to NOT try to kill you, you know they’d go ahead and try to kill you.

We forgive a lot under the ‘self-defense’ justification. Or, as in Assassin’s Creed, the “this Templar stooge deserves it” justification. Or, really, any freaking justification at all. But if you offer NO justification other than ‘hatred’, sure, maybe you earn some points for honesty with people who are really just in it for the murder, but you also wind up making a lot of people feel kind of gross.

Because even in games where I, by any logical definition, commit lots of murder, I don’t think I’d say that murder is a significant part of WHY I play the game. I play it for challenges, or role-playing, or story, or skill development, or adventure, or trophies, and I commit murder (or, you know, justifiable homicide) because that’s the mechanic the game uses to advance these things. I don’t pick up a game and say “ooh, lots of killing in this one, looks good.”

I mean, like you, I’m not going to say “I deplore the violence” or anything. I have fun with the violence. I certainly derive satisfaction from the depicted deaths of others, as when successfully killing a tough enemy, or stabbing someone in the back in just the right spot, or wading calmly through a mob of randits who apparently didn’t realize that I’m now 57th level–suckers. I also enjoy artistic blood spatters and dramatically exploding enemies and so on. But there’s that justification piece that has to be there: these people were trying to kill me, or they’re trying to take over the world for the Templars, or they’re trying to kill someone else, or whatever.

You have to give me a reason, I guess. I personally don’t want to play the evil-for-evil’s-sake villain. We all play for different reasons, of course.

Butch:

Thing is, it’s been done. It was called Postal. It got a lot of shock value, the press went nuts, etc. There were two sequels, no one bought them as they were boring. This is nothing new, even. It’s just Postal without the post office.

And Yup. We like to be justified.

I also think that the outright cruelty of it rankles. I might have mentioned, the one thing I did in a game that led me to reload the game and NOT do it just because I was NOT doing that was telling a kid that his parents were ashamed of him and making him cry. This in FO3. Not the violence, not the contract killing, no. Having a kid beg me “please don’t make them send me to military school, I promise I’ll stop wetting the bed, don’t make me go!” Nope. That got a nope. Because he was innocent, and it was cruel. (Three fucking hours I spent looking for another way out of tranquility lane, and found it when I punched a vase out of sheer frustration).

Or even it’s the difference between liking violent films, and seeing that Schindler’s List or Clockwork Orange or the Godfather are some of the best films ever made, and being outrightly disgusted by Hostel or Saw 7. All violence is not created equal. Use it to tell a story, good. Use it for sheer shock value, bad. Ditto for sex and profanity, for that matter.

Feminina:

Ah, but clearly the problem with Postal was bad graphics. With modern technology you can REALLY enjoy your victims’ terrified cries and pleas for mercy!

Every generation needs its murder simulator.

I also think it’s interesting that the article mentions you can do all the same basic ‘killing random strangers for no reason except that you can’ in GTA, and how he tries to work out the difference there. I haven’t played GTA and don’t find it very appealing (I don’t much like driving games, is a big thing), but I guess we could argue that at least there ARE other things to do in those games? Like, you don’t HAVE to murder bystanders to progress in the game?

But honestly, maybe it’s just giving you enough non-murder things to do in between murders, to take the edge off, that’s the difference. If I have a game that’s nothing but murder, I feel gross and also I get bored. If I have a game that has a lot of other stuff going on, “oh and by the way here’s this mission where you murder someone” it’s more…palatable.

Boredom is probably the greatest sin of all, though. So many times “getting to the good stuff” backfires because what makes the good stuff good is context and anticipation. Yeah, we all wish we could eat nothing but frosting when we’re kids, but as we get older we realize that this makes us feel sick, and that also the thing that makes frosting really enjoyable is having it as a part of the cake–or maybe straight from the container, I don’t judge–but at any rate not as the only menu item in every single meal.

Even if the thing you like most in games IS the murder, you’ll probably like it more in GTA, where you can go off and do other things and work up your appetite for another massacre, than you will in a game where that’s all you get to do.

As for me, watching bits of GTA5 over Mr. O’Ladybrain’s shoulder was enough. There was this bit where you had to torture some guy for information, and you couldn’t complete the mission until you’d used all of the various torture equipment lying around, and another bit where you kidnapped some guy (I think also in relation to information) and left him in the trunk of a car on a railroad track to be smashed by a train. That’s not a kind of violence I enjoy.

I think probably another part of ‘justification’ is the idea that the person you’re killing is dangerous and could potentially kill you back (so to speak). I like sneaking, and a good stealth kill is very satisfying, but to be honest I feel more “OK” about killing someone in an open fight. If someone has a chance to fight back, and is capable of fighting back, then that’s “fair.” You earned that murder!

Killing bystanders and civilians and people who aren’t equipped for or capable of fighting back, who don’t pose a threat to your character, feels way more questionable, and that’s where the “gleeful mowing down of pedestrians” in GTA fails for me. I get that’s it’s fun to see them bounce across the street and all, and swerving to run into them just right is a skill, and I’m not saying everyone who runs over GTA pedestrians is a sick and horrible person. It’s a game, duh.

But it’s a game where you are, in that case, choosing to pick on people weaker than you are, and I guess I’d rather play a game where I pick on people more my own size. Because apparently my morality comes from the playground.

Which is appropriate, since we’re talking about games. Ha.

Butch:

That’s true about Postal being held back by its graphics. I didn’t buy this fancy PS4 to kill in low def.

Well, story, I guess, not just any non-murder thing. I mean, if it was tennis, murder, tennis, murder, that would get boring and annoying (or strangely fascinating in a surrealist way). But GTA WAS praised for character and story. We’ll never know.

It’ll be very sad when I get bored with shotgunning people. You know? It’s the little things.

Yeah, violence against the helpless, not so good. Although, I did just watch Joel torture some dudes. Wasn’t fun to watch, though.

And while we’re on that…..you mentioned very accurately that the combat violence in TLOU is very graphic. Has a weight to it, you could say. And yet, in this torture scene, you don’t… see it. Sure, you know Joel has just put a knife in that guy’s knee, but they don’t show the knife or the knee. When he’s about to kill the other dude, pipe swings offscreen, fade to black. Those bits didn’t have the knife to neck/board to head oomph of…..like everything else in the game. So I guess Naughty Dog thought that ok, there IS a line, and here it is. Showing Joel pull a guy’s throat out with a shiv in combat, ok, showing Joel pull a guy’s knee apart when said guy is tied up, not ok. So there’s the line.

I see that, about picking on people your own size. It’s why we always go so paragon, I suppose. That’s us. Heroes.

Feminina:

We are so very paragon. I mean, aside from the fact that I’m currently the head of the Dark Brotherhood in Skyrim.

Also, you only watched, right? (Unless I’m blocking something out.) You as a player didn’t actually have to take any action, or even make the choice to act, so you could distance yourself from it that way. The cutscene gives you some space, lets you remind yourself that this is Joel and Joel does what he does without consulting you, and you’re not Joel. And, as you say, it backs off from the actual depiction of violence as well.

Is this a simple act of mercy toward the player, or a cop out? We don’t want to see that or be responsible for that, so the game lets us off the hook. Would it be more honest if they made us watch, or made us push buttons to actually use the shiv? “Look, this is what you’re doing, so you can live with the icky feeling it gives you if you value the information that much”?

I think probably backing off was the right call as long as this was the only way to proceed. If you had a choice–torture the guy, or just start walking and hope you get lucky–then it would be fair to make you watch if you chose to torture, but if it’s not really a choice, I (very much) appreciate that they didn’t go all torture porn on the pain and suffering.

So, do I think it SHOULD have been a choice? No, not really. I don’t need to think of TLOU as a game where you can choose to torture people and then watch it in loving close-up. Leave that for Hatred.

Butch:

You do not act. Total hands off controller scene. Let’s you back off.

I lean towards cop out, I do. I also think it tacitly implies there is “fun” violence. If this violence is so un-fun as to be hidden, then the stuff they show must be the “fun” stuff, right? Cuz that’s when you’re playing.

I was rather shocked by the fact they didn’t try to shock.

But wait wait, torture PORN implies you’re supposed to enjoy it, a la Hatred. This, I think, would have been a chance to do what they attempt to do with dialog: show that Joel is also a monster. Or, at least raise the question they did with David: if you’re doing what you have to to protect your own, ARE you a monster? We see David’s awful acts in all their gore, why forgive Joel? Is he not as bad because he’s the hero? If you’re going to draw parallels, have them be parallel.

Agreed, though: Don’t make one choose. Especially as if I had chosen not to torture, more snow sneaking, probably.

Feminina:

I can see your argument for it being a cop-out not to make the torture more graphic–as graphic as any of the other violence, at least. I’m still going to vote for the backing-off technique just because I really didn’t want to see that, but I get that this lets the player/viewer off the hook, and therefore also in a way lets Joel off the hook.

Letting us step back lets us avoid confronting that “Joel is a monster” fact (again–I mean, we’ve confronted it before) and blurs the parallels between David’s monstrousness and Joel’s.

Maybe this is a case of the game being only as strong as the player’s stomach.

Butch:

Oh, don’t get me wrong I don’t WANT to see it per se. But if you’re going to make an upsetting game, then upset.

I mean, this game goes out on a limb to be gritty, depressing, and thought provoking. Why hedge? I mean, it is what it is.

Feminina:

It is interesting. And it’s not that they’re trying to gloss over the fact that Joel can be a bad guy. I mean, if that’s what they were aiming for, they could have skipped the torture entirely. Had the guy just tell him, or had him hear a noise, or any number of things.

But they specifically included the torture, to remind you that Joel will do anything he thinks he has to to get what he wants (like David!), and then they back away from it as if to let you think “well, that wasn’t SO bad.” (Not like David, who IS so bad?)

Hm.

Butch:

Exactly. That scene is obviously there for obvious reasons. Why add it to pull the punch that adding it brings?